Phones of the Future

For equipment manufacturers, designing a multimedia device for the future might seem a lot like Honda's latest minivan commercial. A family sits around a table, each represented by a lawyer. Dad demands all the capabilities of his office PC -- a mouse, keyboard, 14-inch screen, Internet access, e-mail capability and the same software applications. Brother demands speech-to-text recognition, text-to-speech recognition and a video camera. Sister needs a small device with a long battery life. Just as everyone is about to agree on a solution, Mom's lawyer walks in with one more request: It has to be wireless.

This logistical nightmare is a terminal vendor's reality as 3G looms ahead. Is there a market for such a super-intelligent device, or are terminals that act as pipelines to other hardware the way to go?

Doug Barr, AirTouch director of marketing, wireless Internet services, said his company's market research shows a single device or integrated platform won't open up the market, but a combination of products might.

"A certain segment of users prefers integration, and another segment prefers separated so they can pick the best-of-breed in terms of a phone, a palm top, a hand-held PC or a laptop," he said. "When they need them to work together, they connect them up; when they don't, they don't have to carry everything."

All for One, One for All

Today, multiple devices can work together through cable connections and infrared, but RF synchronization still is years away. Until devices can talk to each other through an initiative such as Bluetooth, manufacturers are designing devices that combine several technologies. Steve Bell, Motorola director of global product strategy and business development, personal communications sector, said phones with built-in video cameras already have emerged in Japan. In the United States, Qualcomm expects commercial availability of its pdQ smart phone in the first half of 1999. The pdQ is an all-in-one digital phone and pen-based organizer that integrates CDMA technology with 3Com's Palm Computing platform. Ericsson is exploring an integrated phone-centric device that could facilitate web browsing and e-mail and allow users to work with some other applications. The handset would include a phone book and speakerphone. It probably would be the size of a regular wireless phone, but the screen would cover the entire device except for the earpiece.

"It would allow you to read some basic e-mail," said Bjorn Krylander, Ericsson vice president & general manager of business group, American standards. "It is very unlikely you would read the attachment, but you could read a number of short e-mails, and you could browse through the Internet with your WAP (wireless application protocol) compression to find web pages that provide essential information."

Users could connect to their corporate intranets to access company phone books whenever they needed numbers.

However, today's multimedia phones have some limitations. Critics point out that inputting messages is tiresome without a traditional keyboard. That could change as speech-to-text recognition and text-to-speech recognition become a reality.

"The size of the device is an impediment as far as entry of the data is concerned, so that is one of the advantages of voice input and speech-to-text conversion capability in the PDAs (personal digital assistants)," said Mehmet Unsoy, Nortel Networks director, wireless Internet business development, wireless solutions.

Krylander said that speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion are still a few years away in the mobile environment. Manufacturers are analyzing voice recognition, but more for dialing purposes than converting dictation to text. Text-to-speech is closer to fruition, he said.

AirTouch's Barr agreed, noting that various dialects make speech-to-text a challenge, as proved by speech-to-text-conversion office products. Significant training is involved, and the advanced products need a fairly intensive central-processing unit. Smaller devices such as phones and PDAs don't have the processing power to run such programs.

"We are getting very close to where, when you are mobile, you will be able to decide whether to interface with e-mail via a view-based means or a voice-based means," Barr said. "Coming from the voice side, it is imperative on our part to have both view-based and voice-based interfaces to the services we roll out."

Larry Paulson, Nokia vice president product line management, CDMA, added that intelligent keypads will make entering e-mail an easier process as well. The intelligent keypad allows the user to enter a word by pressing the appropriate buttons on the phone, as opposed to pressing the same button two or three times until he reaches the desired letter. Commercial intelligent keypad applications will be ready this year, he said.

Besides the limitations involved in entering data, the screen sizes on today's multimedia devices are small compared with PCs. AirTouch has a trial under way with Qualcomm's pdQ, Barr said. Although the device allows users to manage e-mail and do some Internet transactions, it wouldn't suit the needs of people who do active web development or want to interact with live full-color web sites.

"For some people, a monochrome web-browsing experience is satisfactory, and for others it isn't," he said. "That continues to be one of the challenges as the form factors keep getting smaller -- how do you allow users to easily input and interact with a small device?"

Gina Lombardi, Qualcomm vice president of product development, does not consider the pdQ input process or screen size as limitations. She pointed out that most pdQ users already will have a PDA and a handset, so they are used to entering data with a stylus or keypad and used to viewing web sites and e-mail on a PDA-type of screen. Like PDAs, the pdQ recognizes handwriting. The user can hand write a note, and the pdQ turns it into text and sends it off. A microbrowser downloads information from web sites in a text-only format so users can see its content faster.

"We will be able to transfer graphics as data rates increase, and we move to our high data-rate capability with CDMA," she said. Qualcomm plans to test voice recognition, speaker phones, different types of graphics and color display for future devices.

Team Efforts

Before a full wireless multimedia device can do everything, several things need to happen, Paulson said. First, networks must be able to carry a higher volume of voice and data traffic. Next, users need devices with extended battery life, clear voice transmission and ready access. Efforts in these areas already are ongoing, but the challenges do not stop there. As multimedia devices emerge, presenting digital imagery over both landline and wireless networks will be a key issue. Nokia and other manufacturers are working to bring a cohesive solution to the industry through three initiatives: WAP, Symbian and Bluetooth.

"These initiatives are continuing, along the line of enablers," Paulson said. "They are not necessarily product-specific or phone-specific; they are potentially items that need to be pushed from a technology perspective across industries to make these things really work."

For instance, a WAP-enabled terminal is essential for a multimedia device to connect to the World Wide Web, said Krylander. WAP is a joint effort among manufacturers to create transmission for information geared toward wireless devices with small screens.

"WAP reduces the context," Krylander said. "You are not going to be able to see a web page the same way on a mobile device as on a PC. A WAP-enabled terminal will figure out the best way to show the information given the display capability."

For full multimedia devices to work, they also must have an operating system compatible with the computing environment so users can download applications. Symbian, a partnership between Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Psion, aims to create a user interface (UI) optimized for wireless communications instead of trying to integrate existing UIs into phones. Symbian hopes to set standards for wireless communications and future information devices. The media has reported that Qualcomm and Microsoft similarly will develop smart phones based on Qualcomm's CDMA and a slimmed down version of Microsoft's Windows CE operating software, but Qualcomm denied the rumor.

Outside the wireless industry, handset manufacturers are working with industries to solve connectivity problems. Bluetooth is the code name for a technology specification for short-range radio links between mobile and portable devices. Users should be able to connect a range of computing and telecommunications devices.

Design of the Future

Bluetooth has the potential to change both the way people use mobile devices and future terminal design. For example, a phone could be broken into several parts by using RF schemes between devices. Krylander said right now it is possible to download music off the Internet and plug it into a Walkman-like device that clips onto a belt.

"Nothing prevents us from switching it to a phone that does the same thing, a small Walkman with a headset that doubles up as a phone," he said.

Further down the road, a person could have a wireless headset with a mouthpiece and carry the phone in his pocket, or briefcase or car trunk, as the headset itself will have a range of about 10 feet. The first generation of chip sets will not allow such a device today, he said, so the first products of this type may have corded headsets.

In the future, Motorola's Bell expects people who use phones similar to the company's Iridium phone to be able to take the cassette module out and put it into something smaller when they go out for the night. As 2002 approaches and technology develops even more, it could be an item slender enough to sli p into a pocket or small enough to wear as an earring. When the user goes to the office, he could drop that device into a locking mechanism, and it would become the RF portion of a multimedia device.

"So you could have a full multimedia model, the pack-it-up-and-go-with-you model, or you may have the very slim, elegant device that you take to the theater in the evening," he said.

Even Qualcomm, whose pdQ is considered a multimedia device, is planning for a segment of users who do not want an all-in-one phone. Lombardi said the company's new thin phone comes with a connectivity kit that will hook the phone up to a PDA.

"We think there are users who will want the two devices separate, one they would use in a work environment, and one they would use in a personal entertainment environment," she said.

Looking ahead, everyone agreed that both integrated terminals and devices that connect to one another would survive. Barr noted a fully integrated multimedia smart phone would probably appeal to a high-end segment, while the largest market segment will continue to connect laptops to cell phones through Bluetooth, cable or infrared. AirTouch will work closely with its vendors to keep its finger on the pulse of consumer's multimedia needs, conducting occasional joint research.

"As these devices get more complex and the bets you make become bigger and more expensive, you have to get in touch with the consumers and feel confident you are satisfying a good-size segment before you finish a product's design," he said.

CTIA's Wireless 1999 was bursting with new phones and devices that feature the latest in multimedia options. Here is a sample of several recent offerings:

* Ericsson's DI 27 is a snap-on wireless data/fax infrared modem. Users place the phone next to a computer, palm-top or PDA device to check e-mail, browse the Internet or send and receive faxes. The DI 27 eliminates the need to connect a traditional PC modem card and telephone line to a phone jack, or using a cable to connect a mobile phone to a modem card.

The DI 27 transmits data on a beam of infrared light between the phone and an IrDA-compatible computing device. The phone does not draw power from the computer, palmtop or PDA. It also frees PC card slots and other ports.

* The SCH-4000 from Samsung offers wireless data capabilities such as access to Internet-based information and e-mail. The 7-ounce phone delivers information through Unwired Planet's UP.Browser microbrowser.

Other advanced data capabilities include voice and text short-messaging service, and IS-99 and IS-707 data capability. The phone has a 4-line, 12-character-per-line display, plus one line of icons that displays data.

* The i1000plus from Motorola is a palm-size iDEN handset that supports wireless access to the Internet, corporate intranets and networks, and enhanced phone features. The phone integrates the capabilities of a digital phone, 2-way radio and alphanumeric pager with Internet microbrowser, e-mail, fax and 2-way messaging capabilities using Motorola's iDEN integrated digital communication technology. The IP-addressable i1000plus handset enables you to browse Internet, intranet and extranet web sites using Unwired Planet microbrowser technology.

* Innovative Global Solution has unveiled a smart phone, called NeoPoint 1000, that includes wireless Internet access, PC synchronization, wireless fax, wireless modem, multilevel voice commands and simple text entry. The phone features a large display and is available in two models: Professional and Personal. The Professional model is shipped with a PC-sync cable and Softsync software for direct PC synchronization of personal data in a Microsoft Outlook PC organizer. A dual-bay docking station allows synchronization and battery recharging simultaneously.